Blessed are the Poor: (March 2011)

When the liturgy settles down after the Advent-Christmas season the gospels initially focus on Jesus' Galilean ministry of healing and preaching. Much of his teaching is included in two collections, one in St Matthew's gospel and the other in the gospel of St Luke.

Chapters 5-7 in St Matthew from the "Sermon on the Mount", while chapter 6 of St Luke contains the so called "Sermon on the Plain". Both begin with a list of 'Beatitudes'.

Luke begins:- "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God", while Matthew has "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven". What is the significance of this first beatitude and the different ways it is stated?

To answer this we must first consider what we mean by poverty. Modern society has spent much time trying to define poverty and distinguishing between between absolute and relative poverty. Roughly, poverty may be described as the human condition that results from a combination of inadequate income and other factors which lead to chronic and servere human disadvantage.

Fr Perry Gildea - Vincentian Fathers

Cliftonville Road, Belfast 15

Addressing the causes and effects of such poverty is the concern of most societies, the social teaching of the Church and a multitude of charitable organisations. Poverty is an evil which has to be overcome and its effects relieved.

In what way then can Jesus have meant that the poor were blessed? I think the people of Gallilee would have understood something different when they heard these words. By the time of Jesus poverty had aquired an extra dimension as a spiritual concept.

The spiritual insights of the Hebrew people are closely associated with their evolving history as the chosen people. The rescue by God from Egyptian slavery and being led by Moses across the Red Sea into the safety of the desert, was the founding moment of the people of Israel. Similarily, their forty years as a collection of nomadic tribes wandering the desert was a period of formation and preparation.

Key characteristics of this period flowed from its nomadic nature. Such societies lived at a subsistence level where all shared what they had. There was no distinction between rich and poor, haves and have-nots. Later, when they crossed into the 'Promised Land', their society changed into a settled agricultural one. Later, in order to be like surrounding tribes, they asked God to give them a monarchy.

This introduced one of the most fundamental changes in their society. Under King David they became an all conquering society and then under Solomon, his son, a highly successful trading and wealthy society. With this came a profound division within their society between the wealthy and the poor.

Even in the earliest version of Jewish law there was always provision for caring for the poor (the slave, the widow, the stranger). Now, in the time of monarchy, we have the prophets (especially Amos and Isaiah) excoriating the wealthy and traders who abuse and take advantage of the poor to advance their wealth and privilege.

With the arrival of trade, power and wealth comes abuse and poverty. The prophets warned against the abandonment of God's ways in these as in religious matters and forsaw extreme punishment. Eventually, political and military scheming, together with a wholehearted adoption of the idolatrous religious practices of their surrounding neighbours, saw the overthrough of both the kingdoms of Judaism.

This was accompanied by episodes of ethnic cleansing where their leaders were either destroyed or taken into slavery. This period, especially that under Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Syrians, became known as the 'Exile'.

History now introduced a new element in the religious relationship between the 'Chosen People' and God. Removed from their homeland, deprived of their temple worship and almost all the necessary accompaniments of their religion, those who had remained faithful developed an interior spirituality.

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These few faithful souls were described as 'the remnant'. Through the prophets they were assured that one day they would be able to return to a restored homeland and resume the practices and traditions of their faith. This faithful remnant were deprived and powerless and in their nothingness they placed all their trust in God and His promises.

They have been called the 'anawim' or the poor of Yaweh. It is this quality of total trust in God and not in human wealth or power that is meant by being 'Poor in Spirit'.

However, St Luke's beatitude emphasised that the spiritual attitude has its origin in real destitution. It is the memory of this destitution and a permanent empathy for those who are materially poor, that will preserve the poverty of spirit which is the hallmark of the disciple of Christ. The disciple who, like Christ, proclaims 'Good News to the Poo'r.

Fr Perry (March 2011)

Sermon on the Mount